


Down Not Out

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Angst, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29366361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: None of their investigations ever go as planned. It takes a toll.
Relationships: Joseph Chandler/Emerson Kent
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Down Not Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eriah211](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eriah211/gifts).



> Written for the lovely eriah211's primeval_denial stocking. Uses the prompt “who said anything about giving up?”

Chandler stood at the washbasin and tried to will himself to stop washing his hands. The hot water had long since turned cold and there was an ache in his lower back from having been stood there so long. There was no chance that any of the blood remained to stain his hands, but he just couldn't stop.

The door opened and Chandler gritted his teeth and forced himself to reach for a paper towel and thoroughly dry his hands. When he'd finished and turned around Riley was standing there.

“This is the gent's, isn't it?” Chandler said, suddenly unsure even though the room was full of urinals.

“Yes, sir,” Riley said with a smile. “Just wanted to let you know, he's awake.”

Chandler nodded and the tension he'd been carrying in his chest eased a fraction.

“He'll want to see you, sir. Make sure you're all right.”

“Me?” Chandler almost choked out the word. “Why would he be worried about me?”

Riley looked disapproving for a moment, before her expression cleared. “ _Sir_ , the way you went down, we thought you'd been shot too.”

Chandler blinked. He'd ducked down with Mansell when the shooting had started, then slipped on some ice and fallen backwards. He'd seen Kent go down with a shocked expression on his face, then rushed to the younger man, pressing his hands without a thought to the wound in Kent's side that was gushing blood. He hadn't cared about the dirt under his fingernails, about the mud under his knees, about anything except making sure that Kent kept on living.

“Please, sir,” Riley said, “go and see him.”

Chandler nodded, taking a deep breath to settle himself, before following Riley down the corridor to Kent's hospital room. Riley told him she'd managed to wrangle him a private room, and then said she had to check in with her kids, leaving Chandler to go into Kent's room on his own.

There was something clean and calm about the room that Chandler rather liked, or maybe it was seeing Kent smiling at him, wincing slightly as he tried to move and pulled at something in his side.

“Don't move,” Chandler said, pulling over a chair next to the bed and sitting down.

“You're all right, sir?” Kent asked, and Chandler knew that there was more behind the question than just a simple query about his health. Somehow Kent was able to read him better than anyone else.

“I'm fine,” Chandler said, meaning it for the first time in a while. It had just been a wobble he told himself, a fright to the system, that was all.

Kent didn't look totally convinced but didn't press; he never did.

They sat in silence for so long that Chandler thought Kent had fallen asleep until he suddenly turned his head and stared right at him.

“Yes, Emerson?” he asked, suddenly wanting to have the other man's name rolling off his tongue.

“We still need to find him, though, don't we sir?”

There was no mistaking who he was talking about, the elusive serial killer who was bringing a fresh new hell to the streets of Whitechapel.

“We'll get him,” Chandler said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.  
  
“So, you're not – you're not giving up?”

“Who said anything about giving up?” Chandler said. “No, we'll keep on working until we stop him. But you – you need to rest. I'll make sure there's a guard at your door at all times. You'll be safe.”

“I know,” Kent said, his fingers twitching against the covers. “I feel safe.” The fingers twitched some more until Chandler put his own hand over them.

“Good,” Chandler said, deliberately not looking down at their intertwined fingers. “I'm glad.”

Riley poked her head in the door, winked at a blushing Kent and then went out again. And when she returned some hours later, she wasn't at all surprised to see them still sat like that, though now they were both fast asleep and Chandler didn't so much as shift in his seat as she lay a blanket around his shoulders.

He'd be embarrassed about it in the morning, she knew, and was almost tempted to take a photo for posterity, but decided against it. In these strange times everyone needed to take what comfort they could. And if there were any two people in the world who deserved to find peace with each other, it was the two of them.

So she let them sleep and went to help Mansell back at the office, after all, they had a serial killer to stop.


End file.
